The Guitar Room

The Guitar Room
By Pappy

I rent a house that's pretty awful.  Horribly energy-inefficient, surrounded by questionable characters (just last week a gentleman died about 50 yards from where I sit right now), run by some of the biggest cash-grabbing opportunists, and featuring a space that doesn't really function all that well, it's a unique house in the amount of pain it gives me.

But like always I think "how long can we possibly live here?" and every day that period gets a little longer (obviously) but that just means the end is even closer, right?!

The odd space in the house is supposed to be a dining room or a den.  But the living room is so big that a table fits in well so, while it may not be a "formal" dining room, I don't think it's much of a loss because "formal" just means "rarely used."  So we let the kids have it.  We wanted to keep them out of their rooms so we could keep an eye on them or hear them if anything happened, and, as a result, the room was destroyed all the time.  Every time we tried to clean it, it was wrecked again within MINUTES of the kids waking up.

The room looked like a bomb went off in it.  A toy bomb.  Awful.  I know you're thinking "how bad can it really be?"  Well, friend, I will SHOW you further down.  Just wait.

We also have a spare bedroom that my wife and I used as an office.  And then she started to also use it as storage.  And then she started taking over more and more of it, constantly complaining about how much space my guitars and amps take up.  Fed up, I said fine, I'm taking over the toy room.

I grabbed trash bags, opened up the car doors and loaded up all sorts of stuff for Good Will.  Then I cleaned it up and began to transform it into an area for me - JUST for me.  I don't want to sound like I didn't want to share or anything, but I felt like, since I have the space, I might as well make it a pleasing part of the house instead of a wasted area where there was nothing but a depressing mess.

I moved my bookshelves, amp, put up some String Swings, reclaimed a very comfortable and versatile couch that is generally unloved by my other family members, and settled in.  There were some requests to use it as storage as well ("Can we store some bikes in here?"  "No, we cannot.") and I did end up with a huge rocking chair because it just couldn't go anywhere else, but generally, it's a very nice space.  I feel good in it.

There are trade-offs.  HUGE trade-offs.  Where I have tons of great light and lots of space, I can't plug in my guitars without headphones when the kids are asleep, which is generally the only time I can plug in anyway.

I also don't have a desk or chair anymore.  I sit on a footstool and use an end-table as a desk.  That's lame sauce!

I'm also right next to the kitchen with its noisy appliances, and that is next to the living room where my apparently-deaf wife watches TV.  The weirdest part about the human ear is that it hears LESS when what it's trying to hear is something you WANT to hear, but when it's something you DON'T want to hear, the volume of a pin dropping is just loud enough for you to say "Jeez!  Do you have to have it up so loud?!"

But still, how badly can I complain when I have this great-looking space?

OK, so let's get into the pictures!

All done!  I like it!

XXX---XXX

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